The post-revolution Egyptian

Land Reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...

was an effort to change

land ownership In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...

practices in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

following the 1952 Revolution launched by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers Movement.

Problems prior to 1952

Prior to the 1952 coup that installed

Muhammad Naguib Mohamed Bey Naguib Youssef Qutb El-Qashlan ( ar, الرئيس اللواء محمد بك نجيب يوسف قطب القشلان, ; 19 February 1901 – 28 August 1984), also known as Mohamed Naguib, was an Egyptian revolutionary, and, along ...

as President, less than six percent of Egypt's population owned more than 65% of the land in the country, and less than 0.5% of Egyptians owned more than one-third of all fertile land. These major owners had almost autocratic control over the land they owned and charged high rents which averaged 75% of the income generated by the rented land. These high rents coupled with the high

interest rate An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, ...

s charged by banks plunged many small farmers and

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

into debt. Peasants who worked as laborers on farms also suffered, receiving average wages of only eight to fifteen piastres a day. The combination of these circumstances led

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Anouar Abdel Malek to call the pre-reform Egyptian peasantry "an exploited mass surrounded by hunger, disease and death". Another historian, Robert Stephens, has compared the state of Egyptian peasants before land reform to that of French peasants before the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

.Stephens R

Law Number 178

On September 11, 1952, Law Number 178 began the process of

land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...

in Egypt. The law had numerous provisions that attempted to remedy the Egyptian land problems: *Land owners were prohibited to possess more than 200

feddan A feddan ( ar, فدّان, faddān) is a unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and the Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the fedda ...

s of land. However, fathers with more than 2 children were allowed to own 300 feddans. *A limit on the rental rate for land was set at seven times the land tax value of the plot of land. *All land leases were given a minimum duration of three years. *The government established cooperatives for farmers holding less than five feddans. The members of these cooperatives worked together to obtain supplies such as

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

s, pesticides, and seeds as well as cooperating to transport their products to market. *A minimum wage for agricultural workers was set at 18 piastres per day. Additionally, the law provided for the redistribution of any land that owners held over the limits it established: *Each affected owner would receive compensation for his excess land in government bonds worth a total of ten times the rental value of the land. These bonds would pay 3% interest and mature in thirty years. *All land bought by the government would be sold to peasants though no person could obtain more than five feddans from the government. Peasants who bought land would pay the government the cost of the land and a 15% surcharge over a period of thirty years. Law 178 initially met opposition from Prime Minister

Ali Maher Pasha Aly Maher Pasha ( ar, علي ماهر باشا; 9 November 1882 – 25 August 1960) was an Egyptian political figure. He was Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government ...

who supported a limit of 500 feddans for land ownership. However, the Revolutionary Command Council demonstrated its power by forcing him to resign, replacing him with

and passing the law.

Modifications to land reform

In 1958, three provisions of the land reform law were revised: *The interest on the bonds the government used to repay owners of seized land was lowered to 1.5%. *People who purchased land from the government were given forty years (in place of thirty) to complete repayment. *The government surcharge to be paid by purchasers was lowered to 10%. In 1961, the government again revised the land reform program by lowering the land ownership maximum to one hundred feddans.

Results

Initially, land reform essentially abolished the political influence of major land owners. However, it only resulted in the redistribution of about 15% of Egypt's land under cultivation, and by the early 1980s, the effects of land reform in Egypt drew to a halt as the population of Egypt moved away from

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

. The Egyptian land reform laws were greatly curtailed under

Anwar Sadat Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...

and eventually abolished.

References

*Abdel Malek, Anouar (1968). ''Egypt: Military Society''. New York: Random House. . *Stephens, Robert (1971). ''Nasser: A Political Biography''. New York: Simon and Schuster. .
"Egypt: The Society and Its Environment"
(1990). Retrieved 31 March 2005.

Notes